RJ05 Reflective Journal Entry 5- Due Sunday, April 3, 2011
As I observe some of you teach, I see several clever uses of technology. How do you see information technology influencing your teaching? Have you used technology to engage, inform, or increase students research or critical thinking skills? How does it help? How does it hinder? Describe some ways that you have incorporated tech into your teaching, and how you see yourself using these tools when you have your own classroom.
Sometimes, I feel as though I am competing with technology and opportunities students have at home that they may not, or I did not, have in high school. I look at the situation, as if you cannot beat them, join them, thus I have tried to incorporate many different activities. I also incorporate technology in good conscience knowing that they will be expected to use it in college, and many future jobs in some capacity. Our science department has access to enough laptops for each student, so for complicated processes, I have the students run through several reinforcement interactives from teacher's domain, so that they can go through the activity at their own pace, and slow down at the more complicated aspects for themselves. With the computer linked projector in the room, although it is not the most advanced option, I do use it to build powerpoints that they all add onto as we go. In Earth Science, I had students take information and turn it into a graph and data table, relating to measurable pieces of information about the planets. It not only advanced their knowledge on relationships between characteristics of the planets, but by having to struggle through excel, and troubleshoot their work it advanced their general critical thinking skills. Finally, I often have students write papers that involve incorporation of information from their book, and outside resources to enrich their knowledge on the specific subject, or a topic that may be related but interest them more.
The major way that I see technology hindering my students experience is the fact that they expect to be able to look everything (information) up, and not have to think about it. For one lab in particular, instead of using reasoning to answer questions, students waited until they could go home and look up the answers online. I think that technology has partially stunted creative interpretation, and made students think that there is always one right and one wrong. I had a conversation with one student before a test, kiddingly asking him if he studied, and his response shocked me. He essentially said, no, I like Xbox mroe so I played video games instead. I was disturbed by the fact that they do not differentiate the level of importance of each, and clump them together in one adolescent experience. By incorporating technology, sometimes I often hope to compete with students attention spans and try to include something that they will find stimulating, as words and pictures on a paper rarely intrigue them anymore.
I hope in my own classroom, I will have a similar access to laptops for individual use, rather than just a computer lab. I also would hope that I have an elmo, because I really like to display student work, images, and non-internet activities that would be easier to just put out rather than have to get onto a computer to use with my current projector system. I think incorporating technology is crucial, and sets students up to work in the "real" world.
RJ05 Reflective Journal Entry 5- Due Sunday, April 3, 2011
As I observe some of you teach, I see several clever uses of technology. How do you see information technology influencing your teaching? Have you used technology to engage, inform, or increase students research or critical thinking skills? How does it help? How does it hinder? Describe some ways that you have incorporated tech into your teaching, and how you see yourself using these tools when you have your own classroom.
Sometimes, I feel as though I am competing with technology and opportunities students have at home that they may not, or I did not, have in high school. I look at the situation, as if you cannot beat them, join them, thus I have tried to incorporate many different activities. I also incorporate technology in good conscience knowing that they will be expected to use it in college, and many future jobs in some capacity. Our science department has access to enough laptops for each student, so for complicated processes, I have the students run through several reinforcement interactives from teacher's domain, so that they can go through the activity at their own pace, and slow down at the more complicated aspects for themselves. With the computer linked projector in the room, although it is not the most advanced option, I do use it to build powerpoints that they all add onto as we go. In Earth Science, I had students take information and turn it into a graph and data table, relating to measurable pieces of information about the planets. It not only advanced their knowledge on relationships between characteristics of the planets, but by having to struggle through excel, and troubleshoot their work it advanced their general critical thinking skills. Finally, I often have students write papers that involve incorporation of information from their book, and outside resources to enrich their knowledge on the specific subject, or a topic that may be related but interest them more.
The major way that I see technology hindering my students experience is the fact that they expect to be able to look everything (information) up, and not have to think about it. For one lab in particular, instead of using reasoning to answer questions, students waited until they could go home and look up the answers online. I think that technology has partially stunted creative interpretation, and made students think that there is always one right and one wrong. I had a conversation with one student before a test, kiddingly asking him if he studied, and his response shocked me. He essentially said, no, I like Xbox mroe so I played video games instead. I was disturbed by the fact that they do not differentiate the level of importance of each, and clump them together in one adolescent experience. By incorporating technology, sometimes I often hope to compete with students attention spans and try to include something that they will find stimulating, as words and pictures on a paper rarely intrigue them anymore.
I hope in my own classroom, I will have a similar access to laptops for individual use, rather than just a computer lab. I also would hope that I have an elmo, because I really like to display student work, images, and non-internet activities that would be easier to just put out rather than have to get onto a computer to use with my current projector system. I think incorporating technology is crucial, and sets students up to work in the "real" world.